Norway’s Coming Electric Vehicle Incentives

In the past week or so, I’ve written a few articles about the electric vehicle incentives offered to Norwegians, and how they have helped make electric car models the #1 best-selling cars in Norway in September and October and 12% of the overall car market in November.

However, I was holding out on some information regarding Norway’s future incentives. In 2014, one of the biggest incentives offered to EV buyers is going to be extended to the leasing of electric cars and to the purchase of EV batteries. That incentive is the exemption from Norway’s enormous purchase tax.

In a joint interview (video above) that I conducted with Ola Elvestuen, Chair of the Committee on Energy & the Environment in Norway / Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party of Norway, and Ståle Frydenlund, Communications Manager of the Norwegian EV Association, Ola briefly summarized existing EV incentives in Norway and then announced these coming incentives. He also emphasized the need for local EV incentives, something he knows a lot about as the former Vice Mayor for the Environment & Transportation in Oslo.

In addition, Ståle noted that EV sales in Norway in 2013 are set to reach a total over two times higher than EV sales in 2012 — almost 19,000 in 2013 compared to about 9,600 in 2012.

Ola also gave a hint about how to succeed in politics in general — be consistent and stubborn.

Neither Ola nor Ståle were interested in guessing which electric cars would top sales in 2014, but Ståle did note that Volkswagen (VW) and BMW have each claimed that they have already sold over 1,000 of their VW e-Up! and BMW i3 electric cars — even before market launch.